Sunday, September 18, 2016

The Witness Review (XONE)

I think it is safe to say that The
Witness is exactly the type of game its creators wanted to make. Every aspect of it clearly had a lot of
thought put into it and the end result is extremely polished and well
made. Just because they made exactly
what they wanted doesn’t automatically mean The Witness is a great experience, however. Depending on your
interpretation of the world it presents it can come across as anywhere from
brilliant, insightful, and enlightening to obtuse, pretentious, and
boring. I think I fall somewhere in
between. See all of the details here in
our full review of the Xbox One version of The Witness.

The Witness is a first-person-perspective exploration game
that takes place on an island that is filled with hundreds upon hundreds of
puzzles. There is no story or
explanation why you’re there or what you’re supposed to do, but there are a
series of puzzles laid out in a path before you so you do the only sensible thing
and start solving them. There is no combat
or platforming or collectibles or anything really to do except to walk around
and solve puzzles.

Will you unravel some ancient mystery or earn a great reward
by solving the puzzles? No, not at
all. The truth is that The Witness
doesn’t have a story to tell or rewards to seek beyond obscure themes that are
totally up to your interpretation. It
instead asks you to solve its puzzles purely for the satisfaction of knowing
you solved them. Is that enough? I’m not sure it is.

The problem is that the puzzles aren’t exactly fun to
solve. They are all variations of a
line puzzle where you trace a line through a maze but they get increasingly
more difficult and complicated as different maze types and rules are added over
the course of the game. Nothing is
ever, ever explained to you, however, so every time a new puzzle type is
introduced you spend several frustrating minutes (and possibly hours) trying to
learn the new rules. Eventually you’ll
have an “a ha!” moment where you figure out the trick only to be greeted with a
dozen more puzzles just like it.

When the puzzles are good, such as when they utilize natural
clues you can observe in your surroundings on the island, The Witness can
actually be rewarding enough to keep you hooked. Those types of natural puzzles only make up a small percentage of
the total, however, and the vast majority of the tasks are repetitive and
arbitrary and seem totally at odds with the beautiful natural setting around
them. Honestly, I feel like The Witness
just has too many puzzles and what starts out as fresh and interesting rapidly
becomes a tedious grind as you go through puzzle after puzzle for, as I
mentioned above, no meaningful reward.

Unless you count the little pearls of wisdom scattered
around the island in the form of audio logs as a reward, but I find them to be
some of the most pretentious and condescending things I’ve ever experienced in
a videogame. These audio logs, as well
as some videos in a hidden A/V room you can find, are famous philosophical quotes
that are meant to make you reflect on what you’re doing in the game and go
“Hmm. Yes. Indeed. How intelligent.”
as you pat yourself on the back because you’re so smart and sensitive. I hate them. They add nothing to the experience. The game would be exactly the same if the audio logs weren’t
present at all, but they are simply here to contribute to the illusion that the
game is smarter than it really is.

The Witness is a great example of what I call the “Emperor’s
New Clothes Effect”. In presenting
itself as a “smart” experience front and center by being intentionally
mysterious and leaving things up to interpretation, by its use of puzzles and
teaching you (lol, not really) how to figure them out on your own, and by the
obvious use of the audio logs, The Witness builds intellectual armor around
itself that makes it hard to criticize.
If you don’t like it, it isn’t because it is an unnecessarily bloated
experience full of self-indulgent (note what I said at the very start of this
review) nonsense, it’s because you’re not clever enough or smart enough or
observant enough to “get” it. No one
wants to appear stupid or unintellectual, which is why you see so much over the
top hyperbole about childhood memories and introspection in so many “10 out of 10”
reviews for the game. I’m not saying
people are faking it, but they might be faking it.

By questioning The Witness in such a way I’m obviously
opening myself up to just that sort of personal criticism noted above but, hey,
someone’s gotta say it. However, just
because I might think it is largely pseudo-intellectual drivel doesn’t mean that
I didn’t have a good time with The Witness.
I love that it is completely fresh and new and unique. I was completely and totally hooked on it
for the first couple of days. I’d play
for hours and hours and not realize so much time was passing. I had trouble sleeping because all I could
think about and all I could see when I closed my eyes were solutions to maze
puzzles. When the puzzles are good,
they are really damn good.

I would also say I enjoyed my experience overall with The
Witness simply because of how beautiful it all is. The island is small but made up of several distinct areas such as
a swamp, fruit orchard, jungle, deciduous forest (with fall colors), desert,
and more and they all look totally gorgeous.
The grass and trees are lush and beautiful and the colors are bright and
wonderful. The water also looks
fantastically realistic. The Witness is
pure glorious eye candy.

In the end, despite some legitimate criticisms, I do
still feel like The Witness is a good game overall that is worth playing. It is amazingly good looking and has some
fantastic puzzles that truly do make it a special experience. As long as you approach it with the right
mindset – don’t expect life-altering epiphanies and just go in knowing it is a
decent puzzle game instead – you can have a good time with it. Also, while $40 seems expensive, it can take
dozens of hours to solve all of the puzzles, so you’re definitely getting your
money’s worth. It takes considerably
less time if you cheat and look up puzzle solutions, and I won’t judge you if
you want to do that (my motto is to do whatever it takes to have fun), just
don’t complain you didn’t get enough value out of it. Either way, I do recommend you give The Witness a try to experience its flawed brilliance for yourself.